Mavs TV Controversy

Yesterday's FWST had an interesting article on the state of the Mavericks TV broadcast:

"As viewers know, Cuban sits courtside at nearly every game everywhere. But when on family vacation over the holidays, he focused on the telecast and his men in headsets — play-by-play voice Mark Followill and longtime analyst Bob Ortegel.

Cuban had gripes and, in e-mails to Mavs director of broadcasting Dave Evans, called the telecast "stale" and "unimaginative." He was also critical of Ortegel, who in his 21st season calling Mavs games is adhering to a new edict: "Less is more."

"What it is," Evans said, "it’s a wake-up call, not only to Bob, but to all of us that ratings are down.""

As a fan who watches many local NBA broadcasts (either via NBATV or NBA League Pass)...the Mavs could do a lot worse than Followill and Ortegel. Remember Matt Pinto? That guy was awful with his "Dunking Deutschman" and "Cha Ching the Mavericks Money Ball" shtick. It felt like every night he was trying to work in a "I Love This Game" line just so he could get on an NBA promo.

I like Followill. He doesn't take anything away from the broadcast (which is the best thing a play by play can do). He lets the game come to him and doesn't try to shoehorn in points or shtick.

Big Bob is a Dallas basketball icon. I can remember watching him and Jim Dunham doing games back in the 90's and he always told it like it was, even when the Mavs were horrible.

The broadcast is not the reason the ratings are down. The reason is that the casual Dallas basketball fan has lost interest in the team. Adding Skin is not going to change the ratings one single point.

As a general plea to Mark Cuban, please keep the Followill and Big Bob team together and please get rid of Skin. Things were fine the way they were. Field a better product and the ratings will come back.